“The boss needs his Kochel listings”

Brown and Golovin sleep in the two beds, and I spread my sleeping bag on the ground. Twilley has disappeared somewhere, and now we’re just waiting. I finally fall asleep, and I’m dreaming that I’m in an office, leaning out a window, watching a long line of soldiers slog along the street. Tanks and trucks rattle past. The street is empty of pedestrians, just the retreating gray army, moving soundlessly along.

        I wake to the sounds of men talking loudly, with the cave lit up by flashlights, their beams cutting chaotically through the darkness.

        Someone shines a light in my face, but the flashlights quickly turn to Golovin. Four men cluster around him in the bed.

        “Wake up, Golly,” someone says, reaching out to pinch his cheek. The men stand around him, shifting their weight back and forth. They snicker at absurd-looking Golly, clutching the blanket to his chin.

        “Come on, wake up.”

        “What’s up, Specko?” Golly says.

        “Come back from dreamland, bambino,” the man says. He’s holding a fork from our dirty dishes, its tines crusted with sauce. He touches Golly’s cheek with it.

  “What time is it?” Golly asks.

The men all laugh.

        “It’s wake up time,” says the man with the fork. He pokes Golly’s cheek like a cook testing a roast.

        “Get `im, up here,” he says.

        He rips back the blanket, and the others lift Golly roughly out of the bed. Two of them prop him up on his knees, and a third pokes through our things on the ground.

        “What do you want, Specko?” Golly says.

        “I want you. Fyodor Whatchacallit.”

        Specko is a beefy man, with a big head, receding hair and an Olympian torso. He rests a heavy arm on Golly’s shoulder.

        “It just me,” Golly says. “Same old me.”

        Specko pats him on the cheek.  

        “Little me,” he says.

        “I been thinkin’ about you, Speck. Just the other day I was saying to Mike over there, I was saying, hey, those was, uh, better times in the Zone. Really.”

“Oh, those were good times,” Specko says. “Only thing wrong for me? I had a larcenous little creep working for me. Just about spoiled my peace of mind for, oh, two years or so.”

He pushes his forehead against Golly’s and jabs his chest with the fork.

“Where are the cubes, Golly?”

“What cubes?”

In the shifting beams of light, I can make out Specko’s mouth settling into a straight line, one eye squinting as he searches Golly’s face.

“The Vivaldis, Golly.”

“No.”

“Alessandro Scarlatti,” Specko says. “Domenico Scarlatti. C.P.E. Bach. I could go on.”

Golly shakes his head more and more emphatically

        “I don't have them,” he says.

Specko’s eyes narrow. “The Mozarts. The Mohh-zarts, Golly.”

“No.”

Twilley has stepped in through the entrance, and he moves quietly around the cave, lighting the candles.

“No cubes? No disks? No cassettes?” Specko looks around and rubs his chin, as if he were working out some complicated problem. He gives Golly a sly, appraising look. “Hell, Golly, everybody knows about them. In the Zone, they been talkin’ about you for years. Golly and his fabulous collection.”

“No, no, no,” Golly  says. “All my cubes went to you and the clique.”

“A collection of disks that no one could match,” Specko continues. “Hey, Buster, go through this stuff here.” He kicks at the pile of clothes and blankets beside the bed.

Turning back to Golly, he tilts to one side in exaggerated deference.

 “Shoot, Golly, I can hardly wait,” he says. “Where the hell are they? Me and Buster and the Mal boys here – meet Petit and Grande, Golly – we came all the way up from Quadrant 31.”

“You waste your time, professor,” Golly says, wriggling in the grasp of the Mals, who squeeze him tighter.

“That’s a real disappointment, Golly. We were looking forward to a little recital.”

“We ain’t done one for three months, right, boss?” says Petite. “The knock music.”

“Yeah,” Specko says. “You’re right, Petit. The Knock music. Einie Kleinie. A comforting familiarity to an orchestral evergreen. A spirited interpretation by the Philadelphia Symphony.

“K-five-two-five,” Petit says.

“A nice piece of work. A little creaky in the slow passages. But satisfying, like split pea soup on a snowy day. Right, boys?”

“The boss was happy after that one,” Petit says.

Golly continues to shake his head. “I wish, I wish…”

Suddenly Buster, the man who has been searching the floor, lets out a rapturous exclamation.

“L-l-look at this!” He reaches into the pocket in Golly’s pants and pulls out something wrapped in wax paper.

“What's this, Golly?” Specko says. “Cubes?”

“It’s something I brung for you, Specko. Just something I brung from the Strunck complex. Water under the bridge, Speck.”

Specko holds out his hand, but Buster is tearing open the little package.

“C’mon, Buster. Gimme.”

Buster turns away and holds it close to his face, examining it with simian curiosity, sniffing it as if it might be edible. Specko springs across the room and lowers his shoulder into Buster’s chest. Buster hits the wall with a smack and falls to the floor, grabbing the back of his head. The package skitters away.

Specko steps over Buster, looking for the package.

“Here, Twilley, gimme a hand,” Specko says, searching the dark floor. “Bring one of those candles.”

“Mm, y’ hurt me, Specko,” Buster says, rubbing his head. He looks around the room dazed.

The Mal brothers giggle appreciatively.

“I told you before, Buster,” Specko says. “Don't slow me down. Presto, hear? Molto presto.”

Buster scratches furiously at his scalp.

“Twilley holds a candle over the little package, and Specko picks it up.

“I’ll tell you true, Golly,” he says, carefully tearing away the wrapping. “I got a terrible thirst. We all do. I think you can satisfy it with this baby right here.”

“The boss needs his Mozart,” Petite says. “He needs his Kochel listings.”

Specko pulls out a perfect little gold cube. He holds it up on the palm of his hand, then flips it into the air, like a diamond dealer casually flipping some mega-faceted beauty in the air to emphasize his disregard for its great value.

He smirks at Golly.

“Mozart, Fyodor?”

 Golly’s peace offering takes some of the heat off. Specko pulls him up to a standing position and squeezes him in a bear hug.

“Two or three years ago, you’d a been a dead man,” Specko says. “But right now I’m just happy to see you, Golly.”

“I’m happy too,” Golly says, and his wide smile shows he really means it.

“Don't get too relaxed,” Specko says. “You could still be a dead man tomorrow.”

Specko and his men bristle with weaponry. They have pistols on their belts, grenades dangling from shirt pockets, ammunition straps over their shoulders. Grande Mal carries a long tube that could be a bazooka or a flamethrower. Buster, who finally struggles to his feet, has a jerryrigged rifle – copper-pipe barrel and stock carved from a block of raw wood -- strapped to his back and bullets hanging from his hat.

“You going to war, Specko?” Golly asks.

“Been at war. Who are these two?”

He gives me and Chuck a disapproving once-over.

“Couple of refugees like me,” Golly says. “We flee Strunck. We here for the freedom.”

“Good,” Specko says. “Give these guys some guns. You’re our new recruits.”

Next Chapter: cover